


deleted scenes after dante's accident

by mellowgay



Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: Angsty Ari, Hair Washing, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mention of Dante's Accident, Mention of The Accident, Mention of The Beatles, Pining, Reading Aloud, Really Sad Dante
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27486724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellowgay/pseuds/mellowgay
Summary: some some-what vital scenes that were missing after dante came home from the hospital and before the love confession. i wrote them.
Relationships: Aristotle Mendoza & Dante Quintana, Aristotle Mendoza/Dante Quintana
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	1. fahrenheit 451

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dante comes home from the hospital and it seemed like he'd never stop crying.
> 
> tw: mental breakdown, short mention of s*icide, short mention of *verdose
> 
> fahrenheit 451 spoilers (1st chapter only)

The day Dante came home from the hospital, he was still in a lot of pain. I sat on his porch and waited for them to come home. When they arrived, Sam had to carry most of Dante’s weight as he got out of the car. It was hard to see him like this. He could barely walk. I could tell he was angry. 

He let go of his father’s hand and walked to the door by himself. Mrs. Quintana made him hold onto my arm when he used the stairs to get to his room. He didn’t argue with her. I knew in his head, he was.

He sat on his bed and started to take off his shirt. I took his hands, let them drop the fabric and pulled it off him myself. I couldn’t see the worst of the bruising under his bandages, but I knew they were there. I knew he was in pain. I knew he was in a lot more pain than the pills could fix.

I picked up some other dirty clothes and threw them in the corner. “Are you hungry? My mom made me bring some chicken soup.”

“No.” Dante said. He looked heartbroken. “I just want to lay down. The pills make me sleepy, I think.” His face pinched as he pulled the blanket over himself, straightening it out from it’s crumpled mess.

“Okay. Do you want me to leave?

“No,” he said again. He paused. “We can read.” He cleared a space next to him, throwing a sketchbook and some comic books on the floor. 

I nodded. I found a book on his desk and sat on the bed, softly. I was worried I’d hurt him. He looked so fragile. His eyes were red and glossy, and he was pale from spending almost a week inside. I thought that if I even breathed on him, he might break. 

I started to read. It was Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Sam was reading the newspaper over lunch one day, and he told us that it was banned in schools. He thought it was a shame, that it was a wonderful book. That night, his father gave him a copy.

Dante leaned his head on my shoulder while I read. I thought he was reading along with me, or maybe he had fallen asleep. I wanted him to sleep.

There’s a moment in the book where the guy’s wife tries to kill herself by taking sleeping pills. They have to pump her stomach and clean her blood in her own house. That was their only job- to go around and purify people’s blood and empty their stomach. Maybe that’s what Dante’s mom is scared about.

I knew Dante hadn’t fallen asleep when I felt his tears seep through my shirt. He wiped his eyes with the sheet. I didn’t want to say anything. He was Dante, and Dante cried sometimes. But then he started gasping for air, a painful wheeze every time he took a breath. I finally looked at him, the boy drained of all his happiness, reduced to tears.

“Dante? Please don’t cry. We’ll read something else.” I knew he wasn’t crying because of the book.

“Ari, Ari, Ari…” he said, choking on air. I put my arm around him. He leaned into me and grabbed my shirt like he would fall from the sky if he let go. Maybe that’s how he felt. Like he was hanging on by a thread. Like he was plummeting toward the Earth and didn’t know how to stop it.

I was scared to touch him, but I didn’t know how else to help. I combed my fingers through his hair, pulling the wet strands from his face. He sobbed into my shirt, curled up like a small child in the cold. He was breaking apart right in front of me. He sobbed and he screamed my name and I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified. I thought he would never stop.

“Dante,” I whispered, “Please don’t cry. You’re okay. You’re home.” I don’t think he could hear me. So I just held him.

Eventually, he did stop crying. I didn’t notice until he took a deep breath in and asked me, “Are you going home?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. “Do you want me to stay?”

He nodded.

“Okay. I’ll stay. Do you need anything?”

He shook his head. He sat up, and I thought he was going to leave. He just rolled over, faced away from me, and fell asleep. I stayed up and read the rest of Fahrenheit 451.


	2. he looked like an angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dante bathed ari, so ari helped dante. the original inspiration for this triology!

Dante came home a week ago. We didn’t talk about that day. I knew Sam and Mrs. Quintana knew. I knew they knew by the way they looked at me. Like they pitied me, like I was broken. Like I was the one who cried for hours and not Dante.

We were sitting in Dante’s room again. He was drawing in his sketchbook and I was watching him. A vinyl spun on his desk- something from the Beatles. I didn’t recognize the song.

“Ari?”

“Yes?”

He hesitated. “Do you remember when, last summer, your mother let me bathe you?”

I looked at him. He was still looking at his sketchbook, but his pen wasn’t moving. “Yeah, Dante. I remember.”

“Could you help me? You’d just have to wash my hair. I can’t lift my arms that far. My mom won’t refill my prescription. She’s afraid I’ll turn into a junkie.”

“She won’t help you?”

“I don’t want to ask her. She’ll feel bad. Isn’t that so backwards? She won’t give me the drugs that make me feel better, but beats herself up when I’m in pain. She could just give me the pills.”

“She has a point. Pills can turn into bad things.”

He rolled his eyes, “You sound like my dad.”

“Where do you think I heard it from?” That made him laugh, but he sucked in a hard breath and grabbed his side. We looked at each other. “Fine. I’ll help you.”

He went into the bathroom. He told me to wait until he was ready. So I waited. My hands were sweaty and I thought how the hell did he rope me into this again?

I could hear him unwrapping the bandages, his huffs as he moved. The shower turned on. A few minutes later, he called my name. I opened the door and he sat on the toilet seat, towel around his waist, hair soaked. I was relieved to see he wasn’t naked. I didn’t know how this was going to happen, but knowing Dante, he wouldn’t be ashamed of it. I could almost hear him say “We were born without clothes just like we were born without shoes, Ari. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Except I would have been ashamed if he were naked in front of me. I would be so embarrassed. His bandages were in the trash and new ones sat on the counter. He looked at me. I didn’t want him to look at me. I wanted to disappear.

I was still scared to touch him. His bruises were blue now, not the purple-black they were before. I knew it would be a while before they faded. The scars would take even longer. I wonder if the scars on his heart would ever fade, or would they be just as raw as that first day he came home.

I squeezed shampoo onto his hair. I ran my fingers through his hair, just like the week before. The soap lathered and he tilted his head back so he didn’t get it in his eyes. He didn’t close them, though. I didn’t know if he was looking at me or looking at nothing. I expected him to cry like he did last summer when he bathed me. I should’ve been the one crying, Dante.

I guess I understood why he cried. I felt terrible about what they did to him. It ached to see him so vulnerable in front of me. He was a blank slate, just a boy with tan skin and dark hair and broad shoulders. And he was in so much pain.

“Your hair is getting long.”

“Yes,” he hummed, “I need a haircut.”

“I like it longer. Reminds me of when we first met.”

He smiled sadly, “I’m not the same boy I was last summer.” Then he drifted off into his own world. He did this sometimes. He’d say something, then go far away. Like he was remembering something that he couldn’t quite see.

I let go of his hair. “You can rinse now,” I said. I washed my hands off in the sink. He didn’t stand up. Right before I closed the door, I saw his teary dark eyes looking at me, looking at my soul, and I looked at his. He was absolutely perfect. And I hated him for it.


	3. god, i loved the desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's a very, very short chapter (included in italics). here's the context.
> 
> tw: mention of marijuana, sort of mentions the accident/homophobic hate crime

Dante’s parents finally let him leave the house. When he asked, his mom gave him a look. “Where will you go?”

He shrugged, “I don’t know, we’re just going to drive, maybe get some food. I need fresh air, mom.”

She had her mom face on. “Be safe and don’t get into any trouble.”

Dante smiled and kissed her on the cheek, “Thank you, I’ll see you later tonight.”

He was halfway out the door when she said, “I’m serious, Dante.”

“I know, we’ll be fine.”

He closed the door. “What was that about?” I asked. We climbed into my truck. He shrugged.

“She’s worried about me going out again.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s fine, because I’m with you. I think that’s the only reason she’s letting me leave, because she knows you won’t let anyone hurt me.”

That’s how I could tell Dante was feeling better. He was being way too honest again. I changed the subject. “Where do you want to go?”

“Can we get burgers?”

We sat in my truck eating our burgers and fries. The sun had just set, and the sky was navy blue, the stars just barely visible.

“I think my mom thought we were going to smoke pot again.”

“What?” I looked at him in disbelief. “She already caught us, does she really think we’d do it again?”

“I would smoke weed again, yeah.”

“I guess I would, too.”

“I really liked pot.”

“I know. We’ve been over this.” I laughed.

“It reminds me of when I was in Chicago, and my friends and I smoked right before we got on the L. We got so lost and got off somewhere downtown. We went into a Mexican store and all my friends wanted me to speak Spanish and everyone there was speaking Spanish to me. It was so embarrassing.” He laughed, sort of sadly. He was playing the memory in his head again. He wanted to say more. I waited. “I think that was the night I really figured out I like boys. I always sorta knew, but that night… I saw a boy at a train station. He was really, really cute. He was tall and had shaggy hair and he had a walkman. I told him how I didn’t like cassettes, and we started talking. And for about an hour we just rode around, talking about our lives. For a moment, I had my clearest thought all night, and it was that I wouldn’t mind if he kissed me. Not that I wanted him to, but I wouldn’t mind it. But he didn’t kiss me. He gave me his walkman and got off the train.”

He had finished talking then. We both thought about that memory. “I love Chicago. I love El Paso. I love pot. I love music. I love my family. I love you.” His tone was sad now. Like he missed all these things, even though they were all right in front of him. _“What do you love, Ari? What do you really love?”_

_“I love the desert. God, I love the desert.”_

_“It’s so lonely.”_

_“Is it?”_

_Dante didn’t understand. I was unknowable._

“Yes. There’s nothing out here.”

“We’re out here, and we aren’t nothing.”

“We’re alone, that’s my point.”

“We’re always alone, Dante.” I felt sad when I said that. “But we aren’t lonely. There’s a difference.”

He looked at me with his sad eyes, and I thought he was going to kiss me again. Only for a moment, but it was enough to make my palms sweat and feel my heartbeat in my ears. He looked out the window to the starry sky. “Then it’s empty. Both the sky and the desert. It’s empty.” He rolled down the window and held his hand out flat, despite there being no wind. “The desert reminds me of you.”

That made me really, really sad, because I knew he was right. I was the stars and the sky and the desert. I was loved, but I was lonely.


End file.
